Eligibility Votes - March 2022

[Douglas Bryson]

Below I propose a minor amendment to Proposal 1 aimed at avoiding any governance issues and giving Council flexibility (note the word "may") in the unlikely event that something similar comes up in future. Needs a seconder.

Proposed Amendment To Proposal 1: add the following sentence to the end of current wording.
"Council may exceptionally approve (including retrospectively) or cancel the eligibility of a player not meeting these eligibility criteria, subject to a simple majority vote in favour by the general membership following a consultation period of at least 1 month."

The 2011 AGM MT decision is the only time the current eligibility rules on initial SCO registration or transfer rules to Scotland from another federation has not been followed. Would adoption of this amendment mean that further examples of the very circumstance we are currently trying to resolve would then be encoded in the Constitution allowing officials to permit divergence from the eligibility rules. 

Would a move-order nuance improve things? "Take" Motion 2 first and after MT status is established (either way) then Motion 1 offers the Eligibility rules to be placed in the Constitution.

As to the "reason" for Motion 2. Avoid the possible recurrence of the difficulties of the 2019 Championship by establishing the eligibility rights of a leading player in a one-off vote.

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The EWP committee was set up to examine the eligibility issues and report back. It met on the basis that its recommendations would be put to a membership vote.
 
This isn't what is happening with Motion 1. It's stated that its provisions will be 'enacted' even if the motion is rejected - it just won't then be put in the constitution.
 
Lifelong eligibility from temporary residency of two years is the crux of the issue. 

The rules were examined and confirmed by the majority of the EWP and are generally a continuation of already established procedures. These rules have already been long used in the day to day work of Chess Scotland. The EWP recommends adoption of the Eligibility section in the Constitution to minimise possible future divergence from the rules.

>>>Lifelong eligibility from temporary residency of two years is the crux of the issue.

Scotland has become increasingly diverse. The percentage of people not born in Scotland may be approaching 20% when the current census publishes its tally. Therefore we need rules to deal with the large part of Scotland who are resident but were not born here and do not have a Scottish parent. The minimum time period which is used by SCA/CS is two years (1 year under 18s).

We provide information to players making an application for a new FIDE registration for a SCO ID that if they are eligible for more than one federation they will be subject to transfer fees and possible re-registration if they choose to move away from Scotland. 

There are now over 1000 players registered as SCO. http://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?...e&line=asc
Over 800 of these players have been registered by the Scotland federation in the last 15 years. The increase is due to the massive expansion of FIDE rating as minimum levels were progressively reduced down to 1000 ELO to bring a world ranking within range of almost all players. 

Residency and longevity were key topics discussed by the EWP. https://www.chessscotland.com/wp-content...Topics.pdf

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I get the impression someone is keen to find a way to allow MT FIDE SCO registration. MT seems a nice guy and I like that he plays in Scotland sometimes, however that doesn't change that he is simply not eligible based on the 3 criteria laid out by Dougie. Having 2 motions is a fudge. If the CS committee want to help make a case for MT inclusion then there should be a proposal to add a 4th - Scottish grandparents - criteria and then put that to a vote. Personally, I'd vote against it (and that's nothing personal against MT).

Two grandparent votes have already been conducted in the last decade and both times the motion to change failed. The grandparent criteria was one of the subject areas examined by the EWP. The reason why this vote is being conducted now is to avoid the possible recurrence of the difficulties of the 2019 Championship by establishing the eligibility rights of a leading player in a one-off vote. If this vote takes place there should be a level of clarity which obviously was not available at the time of the 2019 Championship.

Grandparent: The group considered if parentage should be changed to a grandparent link rather
than the proposed and previous link of one parent born in Scotland. Grandparent is the bloodline
requirement indicated by the Scottish government in their 2014 white paper of what would qualify
someone to be granted Scottish citizenship. Grandparent is also used by some sports bodies as the
parentage level required to become a player for that country. However, Chess Scotland has
conducted two votes on the grandparent issue in the last decade both of which have been rejected
by the membership, albeit on low turnout. Grandparent could in theory extend the catchment of
players eligible to play for Scotland who may have no current connection with the country which
may have been the motivation to reject the proposal.